The 12th Annual State of the News Media report from the Pew Research Center is full of unsurprising data. Mobile media use is increasing, newspaper circulation is down, network and local TV news consumption is up and, so far, people looking for news online gravitate to the traditional TV network sites, and there’s not a lot of revenue coming from digital advertising.

Mobile is where it’s at. “39 of the top 50 digital news websites have more traffic to their sites and associated applications coming from mobile devices than from desktop computers,” according to Pew Research Center’s analysis.

Network and local TV news consumption is up; cable TV news and newspapers, down. Newspaper weekday
circulation has now fallen 19% since 2004, Pew reported. At the network level, ABC and CBS revenue grew while that of NBC declined. ABC evening news revenues, based on data from Kantar Media, have now nearly caught up to NBC’s (nobody’s specifically mentioning Brian Williams).

The total median viewership over a 24-hour period for Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC combined dropped 7% in 2014 to 1.8 million; MSNBC suffered the worst decline.

The three commercial broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, rank among the top domestic news and information destinations online.

Podcast awareness is up, and not just because of “Serial.” For all types of media, significant revenues from digital advertising have yet to materialize. And one obvious headline: News Staff Salaries Stagnant in 2013.

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Danny Elfman, perhaps best known as the musical mind behind the main title theme for “The Simpsons,” will be featured at a local recording session Friday for “From the Top” — NPR’s weekly series featuring young classical musicians.

CU Denver’s presentation of “From the Top” with host Christopher O’Riley will be recorded at the King Center on the Auraria Campus at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20. It will air on NPR (locally on KVOD 88.1 FM) during the week of April 6.

In addition to his work on “The Simpsons,” Elfman has scored many blockbusters: “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” He has been nominated for an Oscar for his musical scores four times, for “Milk,” “Big Fish,” “Men in Black” and “Good Will Hunting.”

Local student musicians Scott Chiu from Denver and Abigail Enssle from Boulder were selected by “From the Top” to perform during the recording. They will be joined by other outstanding student musicians from around the country, as well as from the Denver School of the Arts.

This event is open to the public. Tickets are available at cudenvertix.org or at 303-556-2296.

Colorado Public Radio is one of 15 public radio organizations that will contribute to NPR’s “Here & Now,” which replaces “Talk of the Nation” beginning Monday. NPR announced the cancellation of “TOTN” in March after 20 years on the air. The idea is to allow NPR to cover breaking news between “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” where previously it had no outlet to do so.

The new show will air Monday-Thursday, noon-2 p.m. on CPR; “Science Friday” with Ira Flatow continues on Fridays.

CPR staffers have contributed to NPR programs for years but this formalizes the arrangement via “Here & Now,” a production of WBUR in Boston, which expands to two hours. Robin Young, the longtime host of “Here & Now,” will now co-anchor with Jeremy Hobson, previously of “Marketplace Morning Report.”

Per the CPR release: the local news operation will contribute “Colorado stories and sources for interviews, in addition to offering occasional reporter debriefs. CPR will also contribute to special segments, including business and technology.”

“Talk of the Nation,” a call-in show on National Public Radio for 20 years, will end its run at the end of June. The show hosted by Neal Conan, heard on 407 stations, was not a significant expense to NPR but represented a format that the network felt was no longer a solid fit. In discussions with major stations, executives felt a news magazine could better fill the hours between “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” and would allow the network to respond to breaking news which the call-in show couldn’t.

Taking its place is a beefed up “Here & Now,” produced with Boston’s WBUR, with current host Robin Young (pictured) joined by Jeremy Hobson of “Marketplace Morning Report” and expanded to two hours. According to a release, “NPR will encourage public radio stations to replace Talk of the Nation with Here & Now and also contribute editorial muscle to the expanded show.”

NPR said no jobs will be lost by the cancellation of “Talk of the Nation.” While the network offered Conan the chance to stay on, he chose to part ways with the network. When “Here & Now” takes the Monday-Thursday slot, “Science Friday” will continue. A Colorado Public Radio spokesman said CPR will “review our options” and determine its programming strategy in coming weeks.

What’s the future of news now that everyone’s an internet publisher/videographer/broadcaster? News has been with us since smoke signals and it’s going to stick around, but let’s separate what passes for news on commercial outlets and the in the blogosphere from the kind of contextualized take on events that National Public Radio offers. They really do manage a well written, generally smart and classy delivery. Now they’re aiming to sound “more like America” (beyond the Beltway, beyond a certain socio-economic class).

Margaret Low Smith, in town for a public forum on journalism and multimedia newsgathering sponsored by KUNC-FM 91.5, the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and Rocky Mountain PBS and KUVO, uses the polite word “differentiated” to describe the kind of news NPR delivers.

Public broadcasters don’t deal in breaking news–except in obvious major cases (the Aurora theater shootings, the killing of Osama Bin Laden)– but instead focus on the implications of news of the moment. Whether they should be more nimble when it comes to breaking news is a subject of debate.

KUVO on Monday will introduce a new local morning show: “First Take,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays, a mix of music and news. It replaces “The Takeaway,” the John Hockenberry program, which is moving to mid-day and shrinking to one hour. KUVO will no longer carry it.

Score a point for noncommercial, non-syndicated, local radio.

Carlos Lando, COO and program director, will return to the KUVO airwaves with jazz and blues; Steve Chavis, who joined the station this year, will cover the issues with an emphasis on “unheard voices and under-represented perspectives.” (Chavis was at KBCO years ago.)

National news from NPR will still run at top of hour and the show will have access to content from “The Takeaway.” “First Take” will produce local news and features. In fact, Chavis said, as a swing state, Colorado may be producing content for the national show. For starters, the team hopes to provide content from the Oct. 3 political debate in Denver to “The Takeaway.”

Do you believe what you read in the paper? How about what you see on TV news? If you are a GOP partisan, the answer is probably not.

The Pew Research Center says, for the second time in a decade, “the believability ratings for major news organizations have suffered broad-based declines.” A survey found the falloff in credibility extended to national newspapers (the New York Times and USA Today), three cable news outlets (Fox, CNN, MSNBC), as well as the broadcast TV networks and NPR. Local newspapers and TV stations fared somewhat better.

According to the study, “since 2002, every news outlet’s believability rating has suffered a double-digit drop, except for local daily newspapers and local TV news.”

The Pew folks note the partisan differences in responses to their survey, apparent for years, are growing larger. Republicans’ views of the credibility of the media have continued to erode. By contrast, the study says, Democrats generally rate the believability of news organizations positively.

Actress Betty White attends the TIME 100 gala celebrating the 100 most influential people, at the Time Warner Center, Tuesday, May 4, 2010 in New York. (Evan Agostini, The Associated Press)

Of course we were pulling for her, we admired her energy and game spirit and we wanted Betty White to score a through-the roof appearance on “Saturday Night Live” after the wave of hype.

She delivered, but the writers did not.

The blue humor that distinguishes veteran White, famously running counter to her sweet grandmotherly appearance, works for laughs but is best when used sparingly. The steady drumbeat of superficial raunchy humor on display Saturday was overkill. White said beforehand she was game for whatever the writers devised for her. Unfortunately, what they devised was a one-note string of expletives and sexual innuendo. The NPR “muffin” bit was fun, but the endless “MacGruber” skits plugging the movie were too much.

Still, it was great to see the women of SNL gathered to play with her.

NBC said the episode scored “its highest metered-market household rating in a year and a half, since the pre-election telecast of November 2008,” when Tina Fey did her Sarah Palin impersonation, according to figures from 56 markets metered by Nielsen Media Research.

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After four decades at the forefront of high-end, capital-J broadcast journalism, Bill Moyers is retiring from PBS and his weekly show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” tonight. The former member of the Johnson Administration (he was LBJ’s speechwriter and press secretary), and newspaper publisher, turned preeminent broadcaster, was the closest we’ve had to a preacher on the job. He was an ordained Baptist minister before becoming one of the leading lights of “deep-think” journalism.

Moyers said on the air last week he’ll miss the “virtual community of kindred spirits” who had formed the weekly Moyers Journal habit. Not as much as television will miss him and his standards. His departure is “entirely voluntary,” he said.

On the verge of 76, he’s leaving with a terrific legacy: at CBS and PBS in the 1970s; he conducted meaningful TV dialogs with some of the big thinkers of the day (notably the Conversations with Joseph Campbell, a series on poets and poetry, and his “World of Ideas” series). Not his least contribution has been an ongoing focus on the power of media and meditations on the future of journalism.

Another WNET public affairs series, “Need to Know,” debuts May 7.

NPR’s “Fresh Air” is rebroadcasting some of the highlights of his career, including pieces done during the Vietnam war and his thoughts on working for LBJ.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.